Finsbury Foods doubles profit as Britons gobble up Disney cakes
Finsbury Food said yesterday its profit nearly doubled in the first half of the year thanks to its recent acquisition of rival baker Fletchers and soaring demand for Disney’s Frozen celebration cakes.
The sponge cake, featuring Olaf the snowman, flew off the shelves at Chistmas, helping to lift sales by 24 per cent to £107.6m.
Profit before tax increased by 95 per cent to £4.1m for the six months to 27 December from £2.1m, boosted by two months of trading from Fletchers, which it bought in October.
The £56m acquisition has doubled the size of the group and given Finsbury access to the food service sector, selling bakery goods like doughnuts and hot dog buns to food outlets, pubs, cafes and prisons .
Finsbury has more than tripled its interim dividend on the back of strong results to 0.83p per share compared with 0.25p last year, sending shares up by 5.9 per cent yesterday.